Beowulf and Other Stories: A New Introduction to Old English, Old Icelandic and Anglo-Norman Literatures

The world of Beowulf is only one part of the literature preserved from early medieval northern Europe. The Exeter Book riddles, The Seafarer and The Dream of the Rood reveal other ways Old English writers imagined work, exile, faith and the supernatural, while Icelandic sagas open a neighbouring tradition.

This revised second edition gathers essays on Old English, Old Icelandic and Anglo-Norman writing, together with introductions to Norse myth and Viking-age culture. Peter S. Baker offers guidance on the Old English language, and David Crystal surveys its development. New and revised chapters address Anglo-Saxon archaeology and the prose of the English Benedictine Reform, connecting surviving works to the cultures that produced them.